Chicago Catholic News: Three Chicago-area Catholic colleges play host to Iraqis

Three Chicago-area Catholic colleges play host to Iraqis

(POSTED: 9/14/09) Three Chicago-area Catholic colleges are participating in a program this school year that brings Iraqis to the United States to complete their education.

Lewis University in Romeoville, Dominican University in River Forest and DePaul University in Chicago each are sponsoring a student, paying their tuition as part of a 2-year-old effort called the Iraqi Student Project.

The formal mission of the ISP, which is run by two former Chicagoans now in Damascus, Syria: "To make undergraduate education possible for qualified students who were studying in Iraq, are unable to continue their education because of the violence, and intend to return and contribute to the rebuilding of Iraq."

Last school year the initiative helped 14 college-age Iraqis; this year there will be 21 across the U.S. This is the first year Illinois schools are participating, and Lewis, Dominican and DePaul are the only three in the state sponsoring students.

The ISP was launched in 2007 by a married couple, Gabe Huck and Theresa Kubasak, former Chicagoans in Damascus who were moved by the plight of Iraqi refugees streaming into Syria because of the war.

"Their hopes for university study in Iraq were ended by the violence there (and the murder and kidnapping of faculty), and in Syria their families could not afford to pay tuition," Huck said recently via e-mail. "We knew the excellence of the U.S. undergraduate education and the responsibility we had as Americans for what was happening to these students."

So while in the U.S. in the summer of 2007, Huck and Kubasak began making their vision a reality, filling out the necessary tax forms. In the fall that year they started recruiting and screening Iraqi students in Damascus.

Work included preparing for the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), filling out college applications and then (for those who got to this point) preparing for the visa application.

Although the home base for the Iraqi Student Project is Damascus, a support team was formed stateside.

Jane Pitz of South Bend became U.S. director, visiting Damascus in 2007 and reaching out to American colleges.

"We got a very good reception," Pitz said of her initial contacts with schools, such as St. Mary's College in Indiana. "Schools started saying yes."

Other volunteers came on board, including Rosalie Riegle, a retired college professor and member of the "core group" bringing the student to DePaul. "They just captured my heart," Riegle said of her meeting with the students while visiting Damascus.

The process of bringing students to the Chicago area began last spring for the participating schools.

"When we first started meeting we didn't know if we would be ready for a student in the fall of 2009 or fall of 2010," said Dominican spokeswoman Kristin Peterson. "But things moved along well."

The schools are covering tuition for the Iraqi students, but "core groups" of ISP volunteers were formed to raise money for other living expenses -- and to find housing. (Sometimes the students live on campus, sometimes with a host family. DePaul professor William Sander and his wife, for instance, will host a student for four years.)

Loyola University Chicago and Columbia College in Chicago also were planning to accept Iraqi students this year, but backed out because of legal concerns, said Pitz.

None of the Chicago-area students could be reached for comment. They are Iraqis who most recently lived in either Syria or Jordan.

Brother Joseph Martin, assistant to the president at Lewis, cited "Christian heritage" in explaining the importance of participating in this program.

Added Huck: "Many of the participating colleges joined in simply because they recognized this is a good thing to do. After so much harm to Iraq, we can now do a little good."

By Stephanie Malkus, for ChicagoCatholicNews
Contact: info@chicagocatholicnews.com

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